Author: Xiaoyan Kong

Project Name: Wishlish心愿单

Slides Link:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CY_JXV-RoLhNKo7IPHPwVqonrhc97whWepxNf4TXYxY/edit#slide=id.g3606f1c2d_30

Video Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1v-v36mvmQsaJKrsmPkOmiUWuBJXSAwaO

Problem

We frequently don’t know what other people wants, gift-selection is often associated with stress and anxiety, especially in intimate relationships. 

• Wedon’t know what gift to give.
• WE forget about important dates.
• Gifts lack meaning & does not contribute much to relationship

Intention

I want to create a wechat mini program that makes it easy to choose the right gift, to the right person on the right day. Enable friends or couples to spend more time with each other enjoying experiences rather than spending much time selecting gift and less time enjoying it.

Prototype

    

Reflection

While I was making the presentation, I was reading the double diamond design process. It was very helpful in guiding me in my first stages. It told me to consider the customer first and really understand their life to ensure I define the right problem. Then I should test my ideas with friends and reiterate the process.

To improve my idea, I shared it with many people and asked them for advice. It was a bit troublesome to spend hours explaining to them about my whole thinking process and discussed the project from varies perspectives. But they had offered me the greatest help I could imagine. While they asking me different questions about the project, I was also asking myself one quetsion – what do I want from this project? Sometimes too many people’s ideas would make my mind messier, I had to sit down and organised their suggestions, took what I want and added to my project. They really helped me to keep developing my project, find weaknesses and new opportunities.

There’s always more I can improve on my project. My first idea was commercial but I realized I actually want to help people have better relationships more than the money. But I also knew I had to monetize my idea to keep the project sustainable. I was really conflicting between these two ideas. Eventually, I decided to combine my passion/mission with commercial approaches. (I was also very surprised that I learned to use the basic Sketch and Marvel skills in such short time.)

To conclude, it was a very interesting experience which I definitely learned a lot from. I also think I would bring this project further in the future.  

For the empathy lego workshop, do you believe that it’s my first time playing lego?! My partner Ribirth and I had a lot of fun and worked together as a team very well. We both speak Chinese, in this case, we used Chinese to communicate. The object she built was a symmetrical robot. She also made her instruction very clear for me to understand. So it’s easy for me to follow her instruction and build an exactly same robot. What impressed me is the result of this little game. Me and Ribirth never talked to each other before this workshop. However, right after this few minutes’ game, I felt much closer to her. (I don’t know what she thought.)

After the game, we did a final project workshop. (I will definitely feel less comfortable or confident if I have to share with Ribirth about my final project idea without the empathy game.) The workshop was broken into several parts to help us take one step at each time to come up with new potential ideas or solutions to our partner’s project. The short amount of time and clear goal of each step really helped me to focus on what I was doing: reading, researching, brainstorming and communicating. We both gave each other very useful and mind-blowing advice. I especially want to thank Ribirth for providing those amazing ideas for my project.       

Group memebers: Gabriel, Gabriela, Robin

Framework: Commercial

Agenda: Communication

Goal: Emotional

Our group has designed a bracelet with LED lights for events. The goal of the product is to help people engage in conversations with people they don’t know. It will be bought by event organizers who distribute it to their participants at events. The event organizers can decide how the colors will show on the bracelets. E.g. based on participants’ interests, jobs, personalities or other attributes which the participants have informed the event organizers about prior to the event as they register to participate. The event organizers can control the color throughout the event and create continued socializing opportunities.

Inspiration:

We got the inspiration from NYUSHs Admitted Student Weekend and Candidate Weekend. We, as student group leaders, wear different colored name tags. We realized that the participants would unconsciously seek out people whose name tags had the same colors. In our case, we use LED color as a trigger for event participants to find together and group up, even if they have not met before.

Process:

Our process has been characterized by long, in-depth and iterative conversations and discussions. We each have our own ideas and opinions that we needed to find a middle path for that we all could see a purpose with. Ultimately, we were able to combine aspects of our ideas into a concrete product that we can all stand behind. To me, it was a really good team work process because we were able to listen together and overcome our differences and find a way forward together. We divided responsibilities so each person would make a draft version of different aspects of project before we met again to give each other feedback before we brought everything together into one project presentation.

Reflection:

The way we worked through discussion and listening to each other was a good experience because we all ended up sharing responsibility whereas many group projects end up being unevenly balanced. So it shows the importance of involving everyone and getting everyone to feel ownership. One place I think we could have done better that became clear to me in the classroom as we got feedback after our presentation was that the video should have been more like a commercial than just a video showing the product. Because our product, after all, is a commercial project.

The Ocean CleanUp Project is really admirable. Plastic is a major issue in our world both on land and on sea. On land, it is more visible to us but even then, we don’t do enough. With the little time most people spend at sea, it is even harder to get people engaged in helping with the oceans. Yet, it should take most educated people little time to understand the potential consequences for our world if we do not clean the ocean.

Plastic floating around gets eaten by fish who die, or larger creatures get entangled in the plastic and sink to the bottom. Unable to swim, they drown. Dying sea animals means ecosystems are threatened and with that, so are the livelihood of many human professions related to the ocean. The changing animal ecosystem will also have influence on our on-land environment.

I believe more and more people are becoming aware of the environment, of the need to do something about our plastic and to clean after ourselves. I have seen examples of volunteer groups going to beaches and roadsides to clean trash. They take pictures of before they clean and after and upload it online. Yet it still doesn’t solve another problem: that we have way too much trash. China recently refused to continue accepting America’s trash and so did other countries. The United States now need to find ways to rid itself of its trash that will stockpile within its borders, but the reality is that China says no because it has too much of its own trash being produced.

And so, the Ocean CleanUp Project is taking the trash that should never have been in the water and putting it back on land. The next step is to find a solution that will help us take advantage of that trash to create renewable sources of clothing, consumer products, energy and so on. If trash can be recycled in a cost-effective way, there is enormous potential in trash to disrupt all kinds of industries.